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June 11, 2012

In every customer service related job there are certain questions that customers ask over and over and over again that drive you freakin batty. While the question must seem totally logical to the customer, as an expert in whatever field you are in, the same question is completely ridiculous.

When I waited tables at a restaurant that served pizza people would always ask "Like how big is a large, how many pieces of pizza does it have?" Now I could tell them the answer...but really is a piece of pizza a standard unit of measurement? I mean I could cut the pizza into as many slices as they want but the actual size of the pizza is the same. 2 big pieces, 8 medium pieces or 100 ittybitty pieces--still the same size of pizza. This question really makes no sense.

Same with my job now. I sell mulch, rocks, top soil, etc and I sell it by a scoop of a bobcat which is 1/2 a cubic yard. So I call out to the little loader guy and tell him how many cubic yards of mulch the client wants and we charge by that lovely standard unit of measurement. 1 Bobcat scoop = 1/2 cubic yard, 2 Bobcat scoops = 1 cubic yard, and so on. It isn't rocket science.

But people constantly want to know how much a pick-up load is. Is a pick-up a standard unit of measurement? No! Yet they expect me to hear that they have a Ford F150 and then to tell them exactly how much it will cost to fill it. Short bed, long bed, extended cab, unextended cab...trucks are all different, am I right? I don't measure mulch by truck size, I measure it by cubic yards. Standard. Units. Of. Measurement.

Now I don't expect them to know how much will fill it up either so we have the option that they can get loaded first then come pay, which I am always happy to offer. But more often than not, the lovely toothless creature in front of me will ask again, "But 'ow much'll it cost me to fill my blue pick-up out 'ere. The one 'ith the toolbox?"

...And yes I did have a woman ask me last week why I couldn't just put a scoop in the back of her Toyota Corolla...